[quote=“Muzha Man”]Yawn. Pretty mediocre show. One of the first acts representing a printing press or movable type was very creative, spellbindng really, but everything else was flat and uninspiring. Lin Ming running along the banner to light the flame was almost embarassing to watch it was so corny.
I really expected a lot more. How about the rest of you?[/quote]
I watched some of the reruns I missed when I fell asleep. Great show. I didn’t think the running along the top was corny at all, but rather neat. I quite enjoyed the footstep fireworks that were set off throughout the city; a great concept that of course can only be seen on TV.
Didn’t like the soldiers hoisting the flags, but a minor complaint really.
Fireworks were absolutely spectacular. This surely raises the bar for the next host city.
Scanned a few blogs; most seem to have liked it as well.
EDIT: Oh yeah, the countdown was prrrty cool as well. Loved it.
Yeah the fireworks were great. And like I said some of the acts were very creative, but there was too much technology for its own sake. Poagao mentioned the tai chi. I hated that largely because it reminded me of nothing so much as early Qing painting. Garish colors matched with a simple theme. Wtf is the idea of having a multi-colored electronic scroll in the centre of a group of very elegant dancers in white? It’s bad taste, despite the technical virtuosity of it.
Zhang Yimu was the director, and I kept thinking this is just like his last few heroic films: all flash and no substance. The should have hired Lin Hwai-min.
Yeah, the goose stepping soldiers in black was a particularly tone deaf moment.
Speaking of the land of the free, home…whatever. The big question:
WHEN & ON WHAT CHANNEL IS THE USA-CHINA MENS BASKETBALL GAME – LIVE?
As far as I can tell from the NY Times interactive schedule – which grabs my PC’s time – it will be on 10:15pm tomorrow (Sunday 10 Aug). This would be 10:15am Sunday for the US East Coast.
My wife checked one local listing and it had CHT airing at 4:00am Monday – not only delayed, but somewhat inconvenient.
Of course ESPN & STAR, being sports channels, don’t cover the Olympics.
Can anyone find a live feed of what will be the most-watched hoops game of 2008 to date?
Zhang Yimu was the director, and I kept thinking this is just like his last few heroic films: all flash and no substance. The should have hired Lin Hwai-min.
Yeah, the goose stepping soldiers in black was a particularly tone deaf moment.[/quote]
I didn’t know it was zhang yimou, but i remember thinking parts of it was like Hero… some of it was actually very boring, some of it neat, the soldiers… meh… not surprising.
The MOD people repeated the ceremony on their 4 Olympics’ channels -set after the Budist channels and porn and just before the loop explanation on how to use the system, thank you very much- late at night.
Funny the face of the reporter on CNN explaining how -logically- they were not allowed to show the ceremonies as they had not win the rights. It was as if she was chewing on a very bitter lemon.
I actually got the MOD HD version up and working last night; it was pretty nice when it worked. It’s fine now, with several Olympic channels, some in HD.
Of course they won’t be showing this live - who on Taiwan would want to watch Yao Ming vs. the Dream Team when they could be watching women’s archery?
I know, I know, you gotta cover the locals, but don’t those bird brains realise the money they could have made pushing this game?[/quote]
The people at the three (the fourth, Minshi, is a bit better) stations who cover the Olympic Games are so unprofessional and unenthusiastic when it comes to broadcasting sport events it’s not even funny. I don’t know how the decide on what to broadcast. Who on earth wants to see preliminary round women’s handball or men’s volleyball without Taiwanese/Chinese participation? Why not focusing on events with star power. Ever heard of Phelps? Does setting a WR ring any bells? Jesus. Don’t they care about ratings anymore? I can understand that they show Taiwanese athletes, that’s perfectly fine, even if it’s weightlifting. Other than that please show the fun stuff. Gymnastics, women’s beach volleyball ( ), swimming, diving, ping pong and those sports with star power, like Yao Ming vs. the US.
If you understand Chinese, you can check out the website of the mainland CCTV station. They have a lot of live channels online. If you download the PPStream software from their site, you can watch a lot of live and recorded sport events.
I’ve watched some recorded events in quite good quality. But since I use an English OS computer the Chinese characters of the software appear all as question marks, meaning a lot of clicking around to find stuff.
The live broadcast don’t seem to work. Don’t know why, maybe toomany mainlanders watching, slow line between mainland and Taiwan, or they don’t allow access from outside Taiwan, or my computer is not fast enough. No idea.
what’s with the arrogant american attitude. the world does not revolve around america. and just like you guys want to support your boy phelps, the locals here want to support taiwanese athletes just the same, even if they aren’t the best athletes in the world. figure out some other ways to watch, instead of bitching.
For the opening ceremony I went to My Place in the Combat Zone on the off-chance they might be showing it, because The Tavern is too far from where I live. Good choice, as it turns out. They had it showing on a big screen and at the beginning there were just a couple of us watching. Then more and more people - mostly foreigners - started coming in until the pub was full. Turns out My Place had a half-page ad in the Taipei Times announcing that they would be showing the opening ceremony and other Olympic events with Tsingtao Beer at NT$100. I heard that other pubs showing the Olympics include Malibu West (also in the Combat Zone) and The Brass Monkey as well as The Tavern.
So far those are the pubs I know of for Olympic sport viewing. Can anyone add any more?
we get it in the bay area. 4 hours every nite. Awesome !!! Dont know if its live but we got 4 hours of programming every nite I believe for the duration.
), swimming, diving, ping pong and those sports with star power, like Yao Ming vs. the US.
I’ve been put off by all the photos of people smoking. It looks like a vertitable gas chamber.